Is Nuoo Labour running a 'Law & Orders' conspiracy to bamboozle the Public with the number of 'Uniforms' on the Beat? Or, has the advent of PCSOs and Police trained 'Community Wardens' just another well meaning blunder by our illustrious Leaders under Blair, Brown and Komrades?

There now appears to be several levels of 'Law Enforcement in the UK. We have always ahd Regular Attested and trained Police Officers and Specials. Then from the end of the 1960s we saw the advent of Traffic Wardens. Now, very few Traffic Wardens exist who are employed by the local Police Forces. These good people have been morphed into 'Parking Attendents' or 'Parking Wardens' and who are now, in the main, employed by the local Council, or are Sub-contract Workers employed by Private Companys sub-contracted by the Local Council.

Many Local Authorities now employ 'Street Wardens' to enforce littering legislation. Some, like Braintree District employ 'Accredited Wardens'..

"Accreditation grows and grows!

Employees from Braintree District Council have become the latest group of uniformed staff in Essex to be granted "targeted police powers" in order to reduce anti-social behaviour in public places.

The first wave of employees included Parking attendants, parish rangers, estate rangers, playground inspectors and employees from Street Scene will make housing estates, parks and children's play areas safer and cleaner. They have the powers to request the names and addresses of anyone acting in an anti-social way. The second wave of employees will start training early next year.

In addition, two street wardens from Colchester also received their certificates of accreditation. They have undergone three months' training and are now able to educate the communities they patrol. They are able to request the names and addresses of dog owners who allow their animals who allow their animals to foul footpaths and grassland as well as being able to confiscate cigarettes and alcohol from young persons. They are also able to issue Fixed Penalty Notices to cyclists who travel on footpaths.

The Colchester Street Wardens have recently walked away with two awards given to them by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister who described them as "jewels in the eastern region's crown"!!

Are all these various good folks a help, or a hinder to regular policing? I have no personal 'axe to grind', but with all these people, besides regular Police Officers on 'the streets', just where is it all going to end.

Is the UK going the same way as the US as far what appears to be a fragmented and at times, multitudinal approach to Law Enforcement agencies?

What Next, Senior Citizens in uniform 'policing' Saga Matters for the Older person?

abdi1234 wrote:Yes the police is becoming far more fragmented and interested in spinning figures rather than getting results. Time to go back and concentrate on core activities instead.

Don't faint Abdi...but for a change I actually see where you are coming from and agree pretty much with what you said. We seem far to worried about covering our backs and doing paperwork for such purposes and getting administrative "detections" than actually getting out their and cracking crime or more importantly, preventing it!

Bobbies need a local touchPOLICE authorities should be scrapped and their powers returned to council leaders, says the New Local Government Network (NLGN).

In a paper published last week, the think-tank decried “a century of centralisation” of police powers.

“The modern police force has become detached from society, bogged down with bureaucracy and responsive to central policy rather than local need,” says the report, Your Police or Mine? It claims that its ideas would save millions of pounds for frontline policing and give local people a greater say in local policing.

The future of police authorities has been debated since proposals to merge police forces across England and Wales by John Reid – who was Home Secretary at the time – were dropped. The NLGN says that Home Office targets for local forces are too heavy-handed and impose national priorities on areas where other issues may be considered more important. It urges the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, to give councils the kind of control over local policing that they enjoyed up to 100 years ago.

The report moots the idea of appointing US-style sheriffs, such as Joe Arpaio in Arizona, who puts prisoners in chain gangs to perform community service and receives up to 85 per cent approval ratings. It also highlights the achievements of the detective superintendent-turned-Middlesbrough Mayor Ray Mallon, who came to prominence with a tough local policing strategy.

“Locally elected councils, and through them communities, should be put back at the heart of an overly centralised criminal justice system that is struggling to maintain the public trust,” the report says. “A more locally tailored and responsive criminal justice service would strengthen community ties, restore public faith in the criminal justice system and reduce fear of crime.” http://www.nlgn.org.uk